


Lucem donat tenebris

by isabeau



Category: Fairy Tales and Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F, POV Lesbian Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-23
Updated: 2012-12-23
Packaged: 2017-11-22 02:26:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/604793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isabeau/pseuds/isabeau
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The doctors said she wouldn't live to see her 18th birthday; she does, but is swallowed by dreams</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lucem donat tenebris

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ag_sasami](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ag_sasami/gifts).



Bree dreams.

The doctors would say it wasn't possible -- she's not sleeping, she's in a coma, which is not at all the same, after all, and there weren't the same signs of brain activity that there were in brains of active dreamers -- but then again, when Bree was born the doctors said she wouldn't live to see her 18th birthday. Which she did, only to fall into a coma as inexplicable as everything else about her. And in the coma, she dreams.

Her dreams are dark and formless, full of shadows that are chasing her. She can't ever see quite what it is that's in the shadows, but she knows it's there, can feel the weight of hidden eyes and claws and teeth. Whatever it is she is absolutely certain it's coming to get her, and she can't run away, can't hide, can't even move; thorny vines as black as night wrap themselves around her and dig into her flesh, hold her prisoner, and she tries to scream but has no voice.

#

The change that comes to her dreams is so subtle at first she doesn't really notice it, but she finally becomes aware of someone there in the darkness with her.

Later, after she's awake, she learns the context -- that it was not uncommon for local high school students to volunteer at the long term hospital facility where she was kept; that one particular senior, a girl named Marisa, came to spend time talking, sometimes reading aloud and sometimes just chatting without expectation of response. But at the time, all she knows is that her dreams have changed, shaping to the stories that are told to her, and some of them she can't even understand because they aren't in English but she still listens.

#

Her last day at the facility, Marisa says her goodbyes to all the people she had spent time with, but spends the longest amount of time with Bree. "I won't be coming back," she says to Bree's unmoving form. "I mean, I will, just ... not for a while. College, and all that." She checks to make sure no one is watching before she leans over and kisses Bree gently on the forehead; when she pulls back, some of her tears have dripped onto Bree's face. "I wish I could have actually met you," Marisa whispers, and then leaves, with her wish lingering behind.

Bree hears her, and holds on to that until a few days later when she stirs and murmurs something and opens her eyes. Her voice is hoarse with lack of use and her eyes don't focus properly, except that there is no one there to hear her or be seen anyway.

#

They say it's a miracle that she awoke. (Then again, they say everything about her is a miracle of some sort or other.) 

There is no particular reason for her awakening, but then again there was no particular reason behind her falling into a coma in the first place, or behind her getting sick. The doctors hide their bafflement behind jargon and long words of medicalese gibberish; the local TV stations run feel-good stories about what they dub a "Christmas miracle" even though it isn't anywhere close to Christmas yet and Bree is an atheist anyway; her parents cry a lot, and she isn't quite sure how much is relief and how much is fear about the change.

The world she wakes up to is not the world that she went away from, not the world that she remembers. It's only been ten years, but it may as well have been a hundred, with all the changes -- technological but also cultural, and there are so many unsettling things that are new to her, Facebook and Twitter and online streaming and cloud storage, and she feels very alone and very out of place.

And then the girl from her dreams comes back.

Bree is tired of strangers -- she can hardly get away from them, really; everyone is a stranger to her, even herself -- and so she pays very little attention to the newest arrival until Marisa speaks, shyly introducing herself as someone who had read to Bree during her (and here she hesitates) illness.

"Oh yes," Bree says, smiling and relaxing, because the sound of her voice is like coming home. "I remember you. I remember your voice, at least." She holds out her arms for a hug, and Marisa comes, warm and real against her. "And the stories. I think... I don't really know, but I think it was one of the reasons I had for waking up?"

"Really?" Marisa's smile lights up her face. "It was ... you weren't the only one I was here for but you felt the most comfortable to me. Like we could have been sisters." (They look nothing alike, of course, skin color and hair color and body type, but that's beside the point.) "Or best friends, or..."

"Or," Bree echoes, feeling the same sort of familiar warmth that had comforted her before. "Or what?"

"Or," Marisa says, and leans in, and Bre kisses her on the lips, sweet and perfect.

As a child, Bree had adored fairy tales, stories of knights errant coming to find the girl they were destined for. But secretly, the prince of her dreams has always been a princess -- still in knight's armor, much like Mulan, a girl taking the place usually reserved for a boy -- but definitely a girl

Since the coma, the prince has had Marisa's voice, and now her face as well.

#

Bree wants to deny being tired, but a yawn interrupts her. "It's been a long day," she says, but reaches out as Marisa starts to leave. "Stay with me."

"If you want."

"...and read to me?"

Marisa smiles at that, and holds her hand while Bree drifts off to sleep. She isn't entirely sure whether she's really out of the coma or whether this is just an extension of one of the coma-dreams, but either way Marisa's voice rises and falls to paint a picture that fills Bree's mind when she dreams and keeps the darkness at bay.


End file.
